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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Super Bulky Dropped Stitch Cowl

So, I made a giant cowl. I apparently missed out on the magic scarf knitting trend. The scarf is made by knitting a short length, then intentionally dropping stitches when binding off. I've been loving chunky knit cowls lately and decided to see if this technique would translate. Spoiler alert: it totally does! And the pattern is embarrassingly simple--the only real trick is binding off.

Binding off:
It's important to bind off very loosely to maintain the width while accounting for the dropped stitches.
K2. Pass first knit stitch over the second.
Drop the third stitch.
K1. Pass the first stitch on the needle over the second.
Drop the next stitch.
K1. Pass stitch over.
Drop the next stitch.
Repeat this pattern until only 1 stitch remains. (the row should end with dropped stitch, knit, knit)
Break yarn and pull tail through last stitch.
Weave in ends.

Finishing:
Gripping the bound-off edge tightly, stretch the piece to rip the dropped stitches all the way to cast-on edge. This takes a fair bit of work. The finished rectangle will be significantly longer than your original knit piece (mine was about double). Using leftover yarn, I stitched the cast-on and bound-off edges. I folded the resulting tube over three times. This gives it the super chunk! If you wanted a little less bulk, you could cast on fewer stitches. Just make sure you use: a number divisible by 3 + 2 more stitches.

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